The way you write your work emails can influence a decision, create an impression, do nothing or even bag a promotion. Especially working in a global corporate environment where the job requires approvals through email communications, keeping some tips in your pocket to improve your cross-functional communications across diverse backgrounds will go a long way.
4 words to stop using in emails:
ACTUALLY: This degrades the person reading it as if the information on the earlier email was not actual? It promotes a tone of distrust and ‘actually’ sounds like a correction.
ALREADY: This sounds as if a completed task needs an extra reminder that it is done, usually due to an initial prompting to check if a particular issue has been acted upon. The word ‘already’ indicates a defensive tone to reply to an email; such that the person who needs to check on it multiple times becomes condescending or complacent. This is more sensitive if the email is addressed to higher management. Let me give you an example:
Email from upper management:
As discussed, we will use Trello as a platform for our discussion so everyone may add their pointers into it. Moving on, we can review by end of this week, hoping to finalize on our next touch base.
Junior to upper management:
Noted on above. Just to share, there is actually a similar app XXXX on the market already. You might want to use that platform to fill up the pointers as it is also mobile friendly but if however, Trello, as mentioned in above email is setup already, we will follow accordingly.
Look, the above email sentence started off cold when it could have addressed the teamwork. It immediately throws off the information on the first sentence. Making a recommendation or suggestion could be written in a more tactical way. If you need to introduce a new idea with good intentions, it needs to be delivered across in less aggressive words, using more subtle (humble) suggestive words and always sound positive and smart.
(Revised) Junior to upper management:
Thanks for staying up for the call. Our team will be working to build up creative ideas by this week and present them during our next touch base. Could we check if the team have completed setup of Trello or are still opened to other platforms?
Interestingly, our team discovered XXXX app that received higher ratings for user-friendly functions and works similar to Trello. Dena and Ann have explored it and finds XXXX platform more efficient to use for overall conceptualisation stage, could be another option to implement this or next quarter. Kindly review and let us know your thoughts 🙂
I / MYSELF/ ME: Think from a perspective of representing the company you work for. Use words such as ‘our team’, ‘we’, or simply drop some team member’s name
“Having reviewed the proposal with our team or with Daniel and Amanda, we found …”
SORRY: Use ‘Apologise’ instead.
I would like to apologize on behalf of …
We would like to apologize for any inconvenience…
Please accept my sincere apologies as our team
After 2 years 9 months of working in MNC, communication daily with cross-functional partners across the globe are inevitable. Hence, putting across some empathy into your emails will be helpful and relationships can be nurtured through careful use of words that affects the tone of (email) voice. Write out all the frequently used words on emails and put down on a table ‘Negative vs positive words.’ Bear in mind, neat, concise and well-structured emails will be well received, resulting in efficient replies. Yes, we all need answers.
Please note the above is based on my experience and it worked for me, might not work for everyone in every organization.
LIZTALES 